Chapter Text
The shrill, insistent beeping pierced the thick fog of unconsciousness, dragging Christine back from a deep, dreamless sleep. Or what felt like sleep. Her head throbbed, a dull ache behind her eyes, and a strange, heavy pressure clamped down over them, blocking out all light. Panic, cold and sharp, pricked at her. Where was she? What was that awful pressure?
She tried to lift her hands, but they felt strangely sluggish, leaden. She fumbled, trying to get a feel for her surroundings, but her wrists were bound together. So were her ankles. Still, she tried her best to reach up and try to figure out what was on her head. Her fingers brushed against something hard, smooth, and oddly contoured over her face. A headset? Some kind of VR rig? No, this was different. This was on her, strapped tight, unyielding.
“Hello? Is anyone there?” Her voice came out raspy, weak, unfamiliar. A jolt of fresh terror shot through her. It wasn’t just the pressure; she couldn’t see anything . Just an oppressive blackness.
She struggled, twisting her head, trying to dislodge the contraption. It dug into her temples, the straps biting into her cheeks. A sudden whisper, hissed beside her ear, startling her. "Hold still, you little fool."
A hand clamped down on either side of the headset, pressing it even tighter. Christine cried out, a strangled sound of protest, "Let go of me! What is this? Where am I?"
More whispers, a cacophony of hushed voices, swirled around her. They were indistinct, a low murmur of conspiracy, but she caught snippets. "...the game... final calibration... the sacrifice..."
Sacrifice? The word hit her like a physical blow, stealing the air from her lungs. Her heart hammered against her ribs, a frantic bird desperate to escape its cage.
What was going on here?! She was just walking home from work, and then... and then a van pulled up, and then...was this a kidnapping? A wave of nausea rolled over her. Kidnapped. She remembered the sudden sharp jerk, the suffocating cloth over her mouth, the acrid smell of chloroform. Her last memory was staring up at the darkening sky, the city lights blurring.
"It's all part of the ritual," a voice, smooth and chillingly calm, purred. It sounded close, too close. "No need to worry. You'll be perfect for him."
"Perfect for what? Who’s him?" Christine whimpered, tears stinging behind the unyielding headset. "What do you want from me?"
The voices faded slightly, a muffled discussion. "The ringmaster will be pleased..."
Ringmaster? They spoke of a ringmaster, a circus, a game, and sacrifice. The words twisted into a grotesque carnival in her mind, a nightmare she couldn't wake from.
Then, a high-pitched beep. A hum, low and resonant, began within the headset, vibrating through her skull, through her very bones. The pressure intensified, a strange pulling sensation, like her consciousness was being stretched thin, pulled taut. Her body felt bizarrely light, disconnected, as if she were floating, observing herself from a distance. The world, if it was even still the real world, tilted and spun. She felt dizzy, disoriented, profoundly nauseated.
This wasn't real. It couldn't be. This was a nightmare, a desperate, fading dream as she lay in her bed, exhausted after a particularly grueling day of auditing tax returns. She would wake up any second, throw off the covers, and groan at the alarm clock. This was just a bad dream. Right?
The whirring intensified, a high-pitched whine that grated on her nerves. The lightness in her body transformed into a sensation of being sucked, pulled by an invisible vacuum, into a cold, dark void. It was an impossible feeling, like being everywhere and nowhere at once, a disembodied consciousness hurtling through an infinite, empty space. The cold became absolute, piercing, then vanished entirely, replaced by a strange warmth, a tingling sensation.
Her eyes, or what felt like them, opened.
Black. Still black. But not the oppressive, physical black of the headset. This was the ethereal black of deep space, vast and infinite. And then, from the depths of that abyss, glimmering outlines began to form. Geometric shapes, vibrant and impossible, coalesced, fractured, and reformed. A sense of overwhelming, artificial noise assaulted her – a cacophony of synthesized melodies, discordant chimes, and a low, digital thrum.
It was a loading screen.
Then, from the center of the chaotic visual symphony, bold, garish, primary-colored words exploded into existence, filling her vision, pulsing with an unnatural glow:
‘THE AMAZING DIGITAL CIRCUS’
…The what?
Her mind reeled. The Amazing Digital Circus? The phrase was so utterly absurd, so incongruous with the terror she’d just experienced, that it almost felt like a cruel joke.
The black void shimmered, then fractured, dissolving into a whirlwind of impossible colors. The ground solidified beneath her feet. It was a jolt, a sudden, jarring contact after the sensation of endless falling. She stumbled, catching herself, her hands instinctively going out to steady her.
The air smelled crisp, like ozone and something faintly sweet, synthetic. The world around her snapped into focus with an almost painful clarity, an overwhelming assault on her senses.
She was outside.
But not just outside. This was a landscape that defied every law of nature she knew. Lush, impossibly vibrant green grass stretched out before her. Trees, their leaves a shade of emerald so rich it hurt the eyes, stood tall and perfectly formed, their trunks a smooth, unblemished brown. Rocks, scattered artfully, gleamed with an unnatural polish, their facets catching the light at impossible angles.
And the sky was…certainly something special. It was a canvas of deep, serene blue, like a summer afternoon back home, but directly above her, impossibly, sat not one, but two celestial bodies. A golden, benevolent sun shone brightly on one side, casting long, crisp shadows, while on the other, a luminous, silver crescent moon hung serenely, twinkling with visible, perfectly circular stars. Both were simultaneously present, both casting light, creating a bizarre, ethereal twilight that permeated everything.
What was going on? Where was she? What just happened? She spun around, her head swimming, trying to take it all in, to find some anchor in this psychedelic, impossible reality.
Oh wait, she just realized. She was standing up now. And the headset was gone.
She reached up, a trembling hand going to her face, a desperate need to feel the reassuring contours of her own skin, to confirm her identity. Her fingers…they felt strange. They were encased in something soft yet firm. She looked down.
Gloves. One a startling, vibrant red, the other a deep, electric blue. Both had bright yellow cuffs. Her mind, already teetering on the brink, finally began to crack.
She stared, paralyzed, at her hands, then slowly, morbidly, let her gaze travel down the rest of her body. This wasn’t her body. Her sensible work clothes, the practical blouse and slacks she’d worn that morning, were gone. In their place was… this.
She was wearing some kind of black jumpsuit, form-fitting and oddly shiny, over which a red shawl was draped over his shoulders and covered her chest, two yellow puffballs going down the middle. A blue skirt, adorned with more ridiculous yellow puffballs, jutted out from her waist. Her feet, usually clad in comfortable flats, were now encased in soft, slipper-like shoes. One blue and one red with yellow cuffs as well.
Her skin was now pure, unblemished white. Not pale. White. Like a blank canvas. She reached up again, slowly, and touched her face. Her cheek felt…oddly rubbery. Like touching a high-quality toy, or a strange, flexible plastic. It gave slightly under her touch, then sprung back.
Her hair was at least still brown, forming a short bob. A small, fleeting comfort in the maelstrom of horror. But even that was obscured by something else. A hat. A long, preposterous hat that split into two distinct, elongated ends, one half bright blue, the other half vivid red. Both ends were tipped with more of those absurd yellow puffballs, bobbing with every slight movement of her head.
This…was this a jester outfit?! Because it sure felt like one! Why was she dressed as a jester?!
Her breath hitched in her throat. The realization, slow and agonizing, finally solidified into a singular, unspeakable truth. She was no longer herself. She was…
…WHAT THE [$%!#] WAS GOING ON?!
A cartoonish boing sound echoed in her skull, a ridiculous, comical noise that jarred violently with the raw, guttural scream of existential terror that was building inside her. The swear word, the one her mind had just formulated with such desperate clarity, had been censored. Not just from being spoken aloud, but from her own internal monologue .
This wasn’t real. It couldn’t be. This had to be a dream of some sort. She must have spent too many hours hunched over spreadsheets, the numbers blurring, the stress building until she finally collapsed on her couch and succumbed to some bizarre, stress-induced hallucination. She hadn’t been kidnapped. She wasn’t in some garish, ridiculous jester’s body that wasn’t her own. She wasn't standing in a world where the sun and moon coexisted in a sky that felt more like a painted backdrop than the actual heavens. This was all just a dream… right?
Her eyes darted around, searching for any sign, any crack in the façade that would reveal the familiar banality of her living room, the comforting hum of her refrigerator, the scent of stale coffee. But there was nothing. Only this impossible landscape, these too-bright colors, this unsettling perfection.
Then she saw it. The woman's eyes, wide and cartoonishly expressive in her new face, darted around, looking for anything that could give her a clue as to what was happening. Her eyes settled on a massive structure nearby: a red and yellow circus tent, its stripes faded and peeling like old paint. Well, that explained the whole circus thing from the impossible title card— The Amazing Digital Circus! —that had been seared into her vision upon her arrival. Maybe there were some clues inside? She had literally nothing else to go off of.
So she started walking towards the circus tent. Her body felt lighter than usual, each step an awkward, floaty bound. That was going to take some getting used to. Assuming this wasn't just a dream and she wasn't about to wake up any moment now. Which she REALLY hoped was the case.
As she approached the entrance, the scale of the tent became oppressive. It loomed over her, a garish monument to forgotten joy. She noticed that the canvas had some damage to it. Tears, crudely stitched over with mismatched patches of fabric. Frayed ropes. And... burn marks? Blackened, blistering scorches bloomed across the yellow stripes, as if it had survived some terrible fire. That was strange. But definitely one of the least strange things going on right now.
Hesitantly, she pushed the heavy canvas flaps of the entrance aside. They felt like vinyl and smelled of plastic. She stepped into the circus tent.
The inside was… a lot. An assault. All sorts of props and playsets were scattered haphazardly across a vast interior. Giant, brightly colored building blocks, slides that looped impossibly, trampolines, a ball pit the size of a swimming pool, and strange, unidentifiable shapes that seemed to twist and writhe in her peripheral vision. The floor was a checkered black and white pattern that seemed to stretch into infinity, its perfect, stark geometry making her feel dizzy and sick. This was sensory overload cranked to an agonizing extreme. The air hummed louder in here, thick with the saccharine scent of stale popcorn and cotton candy, a cloying sweetness that coated the back of her throat. Who made this place? Were they colorblind or something? Or just actively malicious? Or maybe they didn’t know [$%!#] about good interior design.
The woman walked further into the tent, her soft-soled jester shoes making no sound on the polished floor. The silence was a presence in itself, vast and expectant.
"H-Hello?" she hesitantly called out. It was swallowed by the cavernous space.
Maybe someone else was in here? Surely she couldn't be the only one, right? The thought of being alone in this visually violent fever dream made her muscles tense up, a phantom sensation in a body that wasn't hers. Then again, what kind of people would even be in here? The kind who designed it? The thought was not comforting.
Well, only one way to find out. She took a deeper, shuddering breath, the synthetic air feeling thin and unsatisfying.
"Is anyone here?!" she called out, her voice cracking with a desperation she could no longer contain. "Please! Can you answer me?"
And boy, did she get a response.
It wasn't a voice. It was a sound. A sharp, slicing whizz that cut through the humming air, followed by a violent WHUMP-THUD that shook the floor beneath her. She screamed, a raw, terrified sound, and stumbled backward, falling hard onto her rear. Her eyes, wide with shock, fixed on the object that had embedded itself in the checkered tile just inches from where her feet had been. It quivered from the force of the impact.
A meat cleaver. The tip of its blade piercing the ground.
Who the [$%!#] threw a MEAT CLEAVER at her?!
She wouldn't have to wait long for an answer. From behind a stack of oversized, psychedelic-patterned gift boxes, a figure unfolded itself from the shadows. It was another woman. Or, a woman-shaped thing. This one looked like a ragdoll, with yarn for hair—a shock of vibrant red pulled into a messy ponytail. Her skin was a pale, stitched fabric. A crude black eyepatch was tied over her right eye, and the single good that remained was pinned on her, wide and unblinking. She wore what looked to be the remains of a frilly blue dress, which was torn and frayed at the edges, revealing a cropped black undershirt beneath.
The ragdoll stood over the frightened jester, looking down at her with a narrowed eye.
"Not so fast, little NPC. Whatever The Ringmaster sent you here for, it stops right here."
…What?
